Microsoft has named Gurdeep Singh Pall to replace the departing Mark Gillett as corporate VP for Skype, as well as its Lync communications product. Gillett, who took a job as head of value creation at private equity firm Silver Lake, had been responsible for Skype’s product, engineering and operations worldwide, duties that will now fall to Pall. An experienced engineer, Pall was most recently CVP of Information Platform & Experience in Microsoft’s new Applications and Services division. Before that, he was CVP of the Office Lync & Speech group.

According to an internal memo sent this morning to employees, top Skype exec Mark Gillett is leaving Microsoft. Sources said that Gillett — who is corporate VP for Skype, as well as its Lync product — has another job he is headed to, although the memo did not mention where he was going. Gillett, who is responsible for Skype’s product, engineering and operations globally, has been with the online telephony company for several years, including before Microsoft bought it. Previous to that, he worked at private equity giant Silver Lake in Europe.

In an interview in Stockholm, newly elected BlackBerry director Bert Nordberg said the board is aware of the value the company has created in areas like the enterprise business, hardware functionality and secure communications.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Jeff Bonforte has been named SVP of communication products at Yahoo. An insider tipped me to the new title for the former CEO of Xobni, the maker of address-book apps and plugins which Yahoo bought in July. “I have responsibility for Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Groups, Contacts, Calendar and some other stuff,” wrote Bonforte on his profile helpfully (to me!). AllThingsD had previously reported that the well-regarded former Yahoo was likely to get just this key portfolio at Yahoo, which could certainly use his expertise.

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